Haber

This is an extended review of the short movie called Haber from 2008. Mr. Shimon Haber as an independent movie reviewer has recently watched the movie and would like to share his views on the topic.

First things first, the film Haber covers the life of Nobel prize winner Fritz Haber somewhere after 1903. It is a fairly short movie (35 minutes), but director Daniel Ragussis managed to squeeze the most notable moments and the inner demons of the characters. Being the best movie on several of film festivals including the Los Angeles International Short Film Festival and the Rhode Island International Film Festival gives this film a good grade from the start.

Now, let’s leave the critics aside and focus a little bit on the main plot.

Plot

Fritz Shimon Haber was a brilliant German chemist who created the first synthetic fertilizers in the world and saved millions from starvation. These fertilizers were actually cheap to made and for that ingenious solution he was awarded with the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1918. He was happily married with Clara Immerwahr, the first woman to have a doctorate in chemistry. But, faith had other plans for him… Soon he would give up his religion, and would then he would step on his own word which was never to create a weapon for military causes. When WWI broke out in Europe, he was begged by the German military to use his intellect and create a new type of weapon – a chemical weapon. Being blinded by his country, first because of the religion, and now this, he was convinced that he will save the lives of millions of innocent German soldiers. His wife, who sacrificed her own career for him, begged him not to do this weapon. She committed suicide at the end, bringing tragedy to the Haber family.

Production

The film was directed and produced by Daniel Ragussis. He was inspired by the story of the Nobel Prize winner Fritz Haber, and he believed that he can make a great film. Spending almost five years on research, collecting funds and information on Fritz Haber and his wife Clara. Daniel was fascinated by the acting of the German actors Christian Berkel and Juliane Kohler, so he gave them the chance to play the main characters. The actual filming was done in only three weeks in 2005, and the movie was stuck in post-production for almost two years. The movie was released in 2008 at the Telluride Film Festival and immediately it started winning Awards afterwards.

Personal view – review

The movie Haber represents a great achievement in the category of short films. Portraying the life of Fritz Shimon Haber in half an hour and making the film look like a documentary is certainly a big plus. You can actually feel the moral dilemmas of the main characters, and the film itself becomes a life-like dramatization with characters from the real life. The director Ragussis cunningly mixes real life events with a little bit of drama and fiction so you can’t even tell what is real and what is not. This short movie became a classic at chemical classrooms, because many teachers can relate this film with the subject of “Haber Process”. It is both very educational and well made in terms of drama, because it can open up a whole bunch of subjects related to military usage of regular inventions, subjects of personal fights and fears, subjects of history, and subjects chemistry of course. Mr Shimon Haber himself has visited several chemical classrooms teaching about the Haber Process and some professors actually played the movie. And because it is shorter than a regular 45 minute class, it leaves room for discussion and room for catharses it was well received from teachers across the United States. Mr. Shimon was actually most impressed with the complexity of Fritz Shimon Haber’s and his wife Clara and how they related to each other. And because in the end there is a moral lesson involved, Mr. Haber feels that the death of Clara, Fritz’s wife is his personal failure, you can actually feel the duality of the guilt towards his wife and the remorse after he created the Zyklon B. But there are certain times when you just have to make up your own mind, and this is certainly a clear example of a man that made his, and he made them with a big dose of hesitation and denial, but also with a great sense of patriotism and empathy.

The movie is compact, well directed, brilliantly casted, nicely made and amazingly well written. It is a top recommendation for a documentary movie about World War I, or chemistry, or about Fritz Haber.